


11:32 AM

by NocturneByChopin



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, M/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 03:45:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7418575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NocturneByChopin/pseuds/NocturneByChopin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They make him want to write poetry until his heart’s bleeding with it<br/>(Bucky wakes up next to the two people he loves most)</p>
            </blockquote>





	11:32 AM

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time I wrote a really lengthy fic in which Steve is a dorky firefigher with a adrenaline junkie streak a mile wide, Natasha is more of a dudebro than a frat boy on steroids, and Bucky is the army vet who pines dramatically and keeps doing the emotional equivalent of cockblocking himself. Then I forgot to save it and now it's all gone. But I wrote the epilogue anyway because the idea won't leave my head. Unbeta'd, all the mistakes are mine and mine alone. Enjoy!

Bucky wakes up with the morning sun that comes in through the large window hitting him right in the face. This is unusual, as his own little studio apartment has only one really tiny window that faces the living room. He looks down. His body is bare and a little bit cold because a certain Russian had hogged all the blankets and now sleeps placidly in the center of the bed, looking for all the world like a human-sized burrito, only the top of her head and a tangle of red curls visible.

This is _very_ unusual.    

He remembers arriving to Natasha’s apartment with a steaming bag of Thai food and vodka because Steve had asked him to (the food, that is. The vodka was all Natasha).  He remembers finding them cuddling on Natasha’s couch, Steve’s feet bare and Natasha’s small hands poking out of a ridiculously oversized hoodie that, if he had paid more attention, would have actually recognized as his. He knows that now because he helped peel it off her body, last night, and she had smirked and held his hands to her naked waist.

He remembers being a little lost as Natasha paused the movie they were watching and made grabby hands for the vodka.

“Long day?” Steve had asked, standing up and taking the food out of Bucky’s hands, and it had hit him just then, as Natasha took a sip straight from the bottle and handed it back to Bucky, as Steve went to the kitchen to get some plates, just how domestic it all was. How natural this all came to the three of them. How easily Bucky could slot himself into this life, if they’d let him.

Bucky had wanted to, right there and then. He had wanted to so bad. But he knew some things were not meant for him. Besides, they were good for each other, Steve and Natasha. They didn’t need him around.   

There is a rustle of sheets. Bucky looks to the side to find Steve, still sleep-soft and very much naked, looking at him as if waiting for something to happen. There is a very faint smile on his lips, kiss-bitten and cherry red.

This is _extremely_ unusual.

“Um,” Bucky starts, stops. He’s not sure of how to start a conversation of this magnitude at all.

Steve hesitates too. “Mornin’” he then says, voice still rough with sleep. He shuffles a bit closer. Bucky can now see that he has a bruise over his collarbone—one he put there.

It hits it all of the sudden, the enormity of this: of being naked in Natasha’s humongous bed, with Steve and Natasha next to him and neither of them yelling at him to get the fuck out of there. Of Steve looking at him the way he’s seen him look at Natasha, as if… as if… he’s the sun, and he’d been blind without it.

His body still twinges with the memory of their lovemaking. It happened—it’s all there for them to investigate, a crime scene: Steve’s hickey obscene on his skin and Natasha’s hair a slash of red on the sheets and they had been kissing, and they had done more than kissing; there has been arms and legs and warmth everywhere and; and Bucky thought it impossible at one point, he’s nothing but a broken army vet with no future and—and—

Steve touches his arm, slow, tentative, as if Bucky were to lash out at him. Maybe he would’ve, once. But he doesn’t now and that’s improvement.

“Buck—are you okay?”

_Yes. No_. “I—I don’t know.”

A pause. Then: “Do you. Regret anything about last night?”

Bucky’s reply is quick, unthinking. “No! God, no, Steve. You and Natasha, I could never. I just.” Bucky’s voice trails off. “I still don’t believe it.”

Natasha peeks her head out of her cocoon. Of course she’d been awake this entire time. She scoots up until she’s on Bucky’s field of vision, elbow propped on the mattress. Steve moves behind her, puts his arm around her, peers up at them over her shoulder.

“You passed out soon after we were done, James,” is what she says. No good-morning, no hello. No goodbye, either, which is kind of a departure of how their morning-after-sex conversations usually go. “So you kind of missed it. But. After. I looked at you, in my bed, and I—well, it was probably all the after-sex hormones, but. I just lost it. I ran into the bathroom and cried for a good ten minutes.”

Bucky gapes a little.

Natasha smiles. Bucky can see the tightness around her eyes, the way she can’t keep them on him for very long before she looks somewhere else; he knows it’s costing her every ounce of her willpower to say this. “I never forgot about you. I never stopped loving you, after you left. So having you back—knowing that I could have you back, like this, that you wanted it as much as Steve and I did. That it could just work, the three of us. It was too much for me. It felt like a second chance I didn’t deserve to have.”

Bucky swallows, “Natasha, I—“

“We should’ve probably had this conversation last night, before Steve and I jumped your bones,” Natasha looks at him sheepishly “We’re sorry.”

Steve squeezes Natasha’s shoulder. “I love you, Nat,” Steve says against her skin. She turns her head back so Steve can kiss her cheek better.

She then kicks the blankets off to the side and starts getting up. Bucky makes a strangled noise low in his throat, and Natasha just smiles and wiggles herself really close to Bucky. “Shh, fine. I’m not going anywhere,” she murmurs, her lips brushing his. “I’m here.”

Bucky smiles. Natasha’s tongue flicks out to lick at his lower lip. It’s very erotic, this. She sits up, though, grabbing one of the sheets to cover herself, and slumps her shoulders a bit. The curve of her back is extremely sensual, Bucky thinks, lower back dimpled, skin unblemished. He wants to press his fingers to it, watch the flesh give way under his hand.

She’s beautiful, Galatea come to life (though that’s not news to him.)

Steve reaches out, cups Bucky’s face. That brings him to the present. He locks eyes with Steve.

“How long?” Bucky asks, because suddenly it’s very important for him to know how much time they’ve wasted.

“Around twenty five years, I’d say.” And Steve’s words sound nonchalant, like he’s talking about the chance of rain today.

Bucky grabs Steve’s hand in his and starts dropping kisses on his palm.  And yes, he’s crying, alright.

“You _punk_! You punk, all this time…”

“Shh, it’s okay, I’ve got you,” Steve is whispering, kissing Bucky’s cheek, the top of his head. He holds him against his bare chest.

“We’re idiots,” Bucky concludes when he can finally speak, moving away so he can look into Steve’s face. Steve’s eyes are very blue; he’s had years to memorize the exact hue, thousands of days to find the words to describe the way they look in the Brooklyn sunset.

Now he’ll have to find some more to speak about the way Steve is looking at him right now.

(Steve makes him want to write poetry until his heart’s bleeding with it.)

“We’re idiots, Rogers. Why are we such idiots?”

And Steve laughs, and holds his face and kisses him soundly on the lips, a sweet, deep kiss that makes Bucky breathless. It’s exhilarating, knowing that he can do this whenever he wants—that he can touch and hold and caress Steve. That it’s all his for the taking.

“Gosh, Steve—finally,” Bucky whispers against his lips. “I’ve been waiting years— _years_ —to do that.”

He’s smiling so hard he has to pull away. He looks at Natasha, who’s fondly looking back at them with her cheek on her knee. The morning light suits her well, Bucky decides, and vows to wake up to as many mornings with her as possible.

“Hm,” she says, slow and husky, a smirk on her lips. “It never stops turning me on, when you kiss each other like that.”

That makes Steve snort. “Perv,” he says, fondly. He rubs the nape of Bucky’s neck and damn, that feels good.

Bucky can have this. He really, really can have this. He hadn’t let himself believe it last night (which in all honesty makes him incredibly stupid but all habits die hard, and Bucky had gotten too used to pining after those he loved). But it’s the morning now and there’s light streaming in through Natasha’s ridiculously big window, tinting everything a beautiful golden, and there’s space for all of them to roll around in this bed and somewhere in the kitchen there’s the stupidly strong coffee that Steve always drinks, and in the bathroom Natasha’s hair straightener lies somewhere, forgotten, next to the delicious body wash she uses and which Bucky will never get tired of.

And they’re still here. And neither one of them is going anywhere.

Madly, impossibly, Bucky wonders if there’s space here for his tiny collection of sci-fi movies and his army uniform. For the equipment for his physio sessions and the unused journals he’s been hoarding.  

Bucky extends his arm to Natasha. “Natashenka,” he whispers, and her face crumples, just a little bit, for a second, before she flings herself at them and peppers kisses on both their faces, messy and senseless and maybe she’s laughing and maybe she’s crying. Steve’s eyes glisten with tears too. Bucky tries not to cry again and fails. They talk about getting up and making breakfast but get distracted. There’s some more kissing. And then there’s tongues on skin.

Outside, spring slowly gives way to summer, and the morning gives way to noon.  


End file.
